World

Third Hacker Pleads Guilty to $45 Million Global 'Cyber Heist'

Federal prosecutors called it "a massive 21st century bank heist that reached across the Internet," but at least some of its operatives won't be riding off into the sunset.

The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York announced this week that a third person has pleaded guilty to participating in two massive global cyberattacks which netted $45 million. Evan Jose Peña, 35, admitted to taking part in the “unlimited operation,” a term used in cybercrime circles to indicate the potential of the crime.

"These three defendants participated in a criminal flash mob, using data stolen through the most sophisticated hacking techniques to withdraw millions of dollars in mere hours in an unprecedented cyber heist," U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement.

On two separate occasions — first on Dec. 22, 2012 then on Feb. 19, 2013 — the aforementioned defendants worked with conspirators around the world to withdraw millions from ATM machines, according to federal prosecutors.

The hackers allegedly infiltrated the computer networks of two banks, the National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah PSC and Oman's Bank Muscat. They then tampered with withdrawal limits on prepaid debit accounts. Once the prepaid accounts were compromised, the hackers sent the information to conspirators around the globe who encoded the account information into magnetic stripe cards (think gift cards).

Using the cards, the crime team was able to steal a large sum of money in a very short amount of time, prosecutors say.

"In the place of guns and masks, this cybercrime organization used laptops and the Internet," Lynch said in a May statement announcing the indictment. "Moving as swiftly as data over the Internet, the organization worked its way from the computer systems of international corporations to the streets of New York City, with the defendants fanning out across Manhattan to steal millions of dollars from hundreds of ATMs in a matter of hours.”

The photo below, distributed by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York, shows Rodriguez and Yeje with stacks of bills.

Other than the three who have already pleaded guilty, the indictment charges five other Yonkers residents in the crime. Law enforcement refers to these eight men as the New York-based cell of the global crime. The alleged leader of the eight, Alberto Yusi Lajud-Peña, fled to the Dominican Republic and was murdered in April in a supposed botched robbery orchestrated by his in-laws. Lajud-Peña was 23, according to the Eastern District court.

Peña, Rodriguez, and Yeje face up to seven-and-a-half years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.

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